1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a peripheral device driver installing device, a peripheral device, a peripheral device driver installing system, and a peripheral device driver installing method. More particularly, the present invention concerns a peripheral device driver installing device, a peripheral device, a peripheral device driver installing system, and a peripheral device driver installing method for providing a peripheral device driver to a connected PC.
2. Description of the Related Art
In peripheral devices such as a printer, a scanner, facsimile machine, a copying machine, and the like, in a case where a peripheral device driver conforming to a peripheral device locally connected to a personal computer (PC) has not been stored in a storage medium on the PC side, a user must newly install the peripheral device driver conforming to the peripheral device on the PC, which lacks operational efficiency. To solve this problem, proposals have been made for providing convenience in installing a peripheral device driver on the PC side by various means by mounting in advance peripheral device drivers on the peripheral device side (e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-311663, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-373144, and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-150530).
However, according to the proposals in the aforementioned patent documents, although the user's convenience is ensured, a storage capacity necessary for the peripheral device drivers must be provided in the peripheral device, so that there has been a problem in that this constitutes a factor increasing the cost of the peripheral devices. Concerning this problem, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-150530, an attempt is made to overcome the problem of the storage capacity of the peripheral device by causing a peripheral device driver to simulate a printer subdevice (storage device) on the PC side and by cutting it off upon completion of the installation.
However, even if the subdevice is cut off, although the peripheral device driver to be stored ceases to be seen from the PC side, it does not follow that a storage area itself becomes unnecessary on the peripheral device side, so that the problem concerning the cost remains unsolved. In particular, in a case where a peripheral device is reconnected to another PC, a peripheral device driver in the storage device as the subdevice must be activated. It is thus apparent that the storage area for the peripheral device driver must be continuously held in the peripheral device.
In addition, there are plural kinds of operating system (OS) on the PC side, and plural peripheral device drivers corresponding to respective ones must be separately held in the peripheral device, so that the problem of the storage is a substantially major problem in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-311663 and the like.
According to the conventional art, if it is assumed that a minimum memory capacity capable of executing the basic operation of the peripheral device is 8 megabytes, in a case where the memory capacity occupied by the peripheral device driver is 2 megabytes, the usable memory becomes a remaining 6 megabytes according to the conventional art. Since the usable memory is less than that of the 8 megabytes required for the peripheral device to operate, the situation is such that an additional memory must inevitably be installed.
In addition, since a program of a peripheral device driver is normally used by being installed on the PC, there are cases where a function of a new peripheral device is provided to the user who is using it, or the correction of a bug of a program is executed on the PC. There is a possibility that such small-scale corrections of the program of the peripheral device driver are effected a number of times during a period of some years of use of the product. Such corrections are classified into corrections intended by the suppliers of the peripheral device drivers and corrections not intended by them. In the former case of intended corrections, the peripheral device drivers are frequently provided by suppliers as measures for guaranteeing functions and operation.
On the other hand, as for the latter case of unintended corrections, there are cases where changes not intended by suppliers are made due to incidental partial destruction of a file, computer virus contamination, or the like. If the peripheral device driver for which an unintended change has been made is rewritten on the peripheral device, its original functions and operation fail to perform as expected, and there is even a possibility of expanding the damage in the case of a virus contamination.
Furthermore, as for the peripheral device drivers in the present-day technology, multiple kinds of peripheral device drivers are required in correspondence with the types of OS of the PC, and the packaging of all of these peripheral device drivers in the peripheral device leads to higher cost.